In which I write about my knitting, sometimes in english, sometimes in spanish.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

No Knitting

(en Español aqui)I'm currently visiting my family in Juarez (and taking care of some health issues) and sadly...I have nothing to knit, worst? It was my decision.

I learned to knit when I was around 11, my mom and I went to a yarn store and if you bought the yarn and needles there, they would teach you how to knit. I never thought anything about my style of knitting until I moved to the US, long story short, I discovered (thanks to Annie Modesitt) that I was a combination knitter *.

As with many other things, I succumbed to peer pressure and about a year ago decided to start knitting through the front loop, the purling was a whole different story. I don't really know how "regular" continental knitters purl (I guessed I could've google it or something), the thing is that the yarn is on top of the needle and instead of wrapping the yarn around the needle (is that how you do it?) I started pushing the yarn downwards with my index finger, which meant and extra movement and stress on the articulation. My finger started hurting and swellign about 2-3 months ago, but that did not stopped me from knitting (it doesn't hurt when I knit), then the pain became more severe, it hurt when I put lateral pressuare on the top half of my finger, that meant that I had trouble tying my shoes, pulling my pants up (I do it by grabbing with my index fingers the belt loops) and doing other simple things. I'm pretty sure I have tendonitis due to the repetitive motion of pushing the yarn downwards as I purl. I decided to give my finger a rest and take a break from knitting, at least for a couple of weeks. As you might've guessed by now, I'm going to start knitting the old way again and hope for the best.

*I've checked with other Mexican knitters and that's the exact same way they knit.

Me not knitting doesn't mean no knitting post.

Last Saturday I bought 2 pairs of hand knit gloves.

Knitted in Alpaca, these were made in Peru. I didn't notice that one the fingerless gloves doesn't have the ends weaved in and the other has a big hole on the side ( the knitter missed the side seam), I think finishing them off will make them feel a little more personal (yeah, keep telling that to yourself).

The fingerless gloves are for me, I have small hands, so they're a bit large, but I love the alpaca motif. The other pair is for my husband. Now that I think about it, I might go back to buy some more, they were $50 pesos each or less than $5 dlls!